The Army Corps of Engineers has a message for Lakeview and Old Metairie residents worried about a recent announcement that their flood risk hasn't improved much at all: Never mind.

Turns out, the corps was right when it announced in June that new gates and levee repairs would reduce flooding in those areas by up to 5 1/2 feet if the city is hit by a 100-year hurricane.

But on Friday, the agency spooked residents by announcing it put a minus sign in a calculation that called for a plus sign, and that the maps underestimated flooding by 5 feet in Lakeview and 4 feet in Old Metairie.

"The maps we put out in June (showing dramatic reductions in flooding in the two areas) are correct," said Ed Link, leader of the corps-sponsored Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force.

After two days of checking and rechecking, Link said Sunday that the numbers in a table in the IPET team's long-awaited risk study were wrong, but the numbers used to make the maps were right.

"I cannot explain yet why those tables have incorrect numbers in them," he said. "But the most important thing here is that we are not misinforming the people of New Orleans."

Link said the risk chapter is part of the task force's draft study of levee failures in the New Orleans area and still must undergo peer review by a team of scientists and engineers with the National Academy of Sciences.

"We were really upset when we thought we had put out something that was incorrect, and we're delighted that wasn't the case," he said. "I'm sorry if we played a role in putting the public through a dilemma about whether that information was any good."

Link said it was a television news reporter who first called corps officials in New Orleans asking about the discrepancies in the risk report. The problems with the numbers were apparently pointed out by Matt McBride, a private engineer who has been highly critical of corps work following Katrina, and who discovered the problem numbers when the chapter was made public two weeks ago.

Mark Schleifstein may be reached at mschleifstein@timespicayune.com or at (504) 826-3327.